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It's funny. Laugh. Hardware

How Not To Install Computer Hardware 373

Posted by timothy from the do-your-worst dept.
ssassen writes "Most computer hardware websites tell you how to get your computer hardware up and running properly and not RMA it after the first boot. Hardware Analysis takes a different approach and tells us exactly how NOT to install computer hardware. They document many of the pitfalls that'll sound familiar to many enthusiasts and have some great pictures of what could go horribly wrong during an upgrade. Very funny, and guaranteed to put a smile on your face!"
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How Not To Install Computer Hardware More

How Not To Install Computer Hardware

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  • Repost! But improved! (Score:5, Informative)

    by eaglebtc ( 303754 ) * on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @02:43AM (#7268219)
    See this article [slashdot.org] Much improved, though, with pictures to boot!

  • reads better.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gfody ( 514448 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @02:47AM (#7268230)
    if you replace "they" with "we"

  • Everything is hot swappable... (Score:5, Funny)

    by seanadams.com ( 463190 ) * on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @02:51AM (#7268244) Homepage
    ...as long as nobody's looking!

    • Re:Everything is hot swappable... (Score:5, Funny)

      by questamor ( 653018 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @03:21AM (#7268360)
      I seem to have the most extraordinary luck (or I only come across tough hardware). I've hotplugged just about everything except a CPU, and the worst I've had is an OS crash. That includes all connectors, ram, graphics cards, vram, drives, psus fans and speakers.

      I tried the RAM and VRAM after realising I'd done some stupid things in the last 20 years and not killed any hardware, so pressed my luck and did those too.

      I think if I do a CPU next I'll be just about complete
      • I think if I do a CPU next I'll be just about complete

        I tried hot-swapping a CPU as well... I was, however, unfortunate enough to hot-swap the wrong CPU (removing the old 486, and not the one with math processor), needless to say, the machine was still running.

        If I had such an old machine today, I guess I'd try to upgrade a standard 486 to one with math processor on the fly, then removing the old one.
      • I used to have such luck. 22 years of PC building and rebuilding (and lots of work on non-PCs before that) and never damaged any hardware (except for a melted SCSI cable; boy, those ribbon cables don't last for many seconds when +5 VDC at one end connects to ground at the other end.) But my good-luck string ended earlier this year when I mistook "powered-down" for "switched-off" one too many times. I didn't even know I had done it until I received a small shock while swapping the AGP video card, (the back
      • Get one of These [sun.com] and you can hot swap cpu's...
      • Heh.

        Interesting note, at Netmar [netmar.com] last year, we were doing spring cleaning, and we unearthed an old sun system, the kind that looks like a dorm fridge. Well, to our surprise, it had a quad proc hypersparc board on it's backplane. We were thrilled to death, so we immediately tried to turn it on. Only problem? Even after multiple years of not being in service, the PROM still had a password on it to make it boot.

        What was the solution? After poking around google groups forever, we came across a page that h
    • "Hot" being the operative word, presumably. If it wasn't before, it will be afterwards ;-)
    • I found out the hard way the downside to having a very silent computer. I didnt realize it was running. Did you know sparcs fly if you hot swap a video card!

      My current computer sounds like a jet at takeof so this will hopefully not be a problem any more.
  • Here's how NOT to install software:

    XP Knows Best [netmojo.ca]

  • Without RTFA, I could tell you how not to do it. (Score:5, Funny)

    by jtnishi ( 610495 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @02:56AM (#7268262) Homepage
    1. Don't install computer hardware while drunk. It'll sure be funny in the morning, but only if you haven't managed to plug things in such a way that they don't blow up.
    2. Don't install computer hardware with all the components plugged in AND on. Yeah, I know that it's good practice to keep the plug in while holding the computer case for installing components so you stay grounded, but when it's all on, I'm sure something's liable to fry. Of course, USB might be an exception, but considering how often hot-plugging USB stuff crashes my comp, it might be best to stay away from that, too. ;)
    3. Don't install components while having sex. Either your SO doesn't care, or he/she is the biggest geek ever, and you're one lucky person.
    4. Don't install components while eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I tried that once. It wasn't pretty.

    5. See, you didn't need to read that article at all. Let's keep up the slashdot tradition!

  • Way back in the day... (Score:5, Funny)

    by chill ( 34294 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @03:00AM (#7268277) Journal
    I used to work in a retail computer store specializing in Amiga computers. The A1200 was notorious for being difficult to install expansion boards into the trapdoor slot.

    I had one accelerator try to be returned after the customer tried to install it themselves.

    I looked at the unit and the pins connecting the card connector to the board were bent and there were chips out of the motherboard.

    I told the customer that it looked like they took a screwdriver to the edge and used a hammer to try and pound the card into the slot.

    I kid you not, the reply was "I did. So what? The manual didn't say *NOT* to hit it with a hammer and screwdriver".

    We didn't accept the return. I explained that my supplier would laugh me out of business if I tried to return it with chisel marks.

    $200 down the drain because the cheap bastard didn't want to spend the extra $10 to have us install it.
    • Well there's the reason why both Amiga AND your old shop went out of business. I remember those cards, we used to install them for free just to avoid these problems. And there's your dealership down the drain just because you were such a cheap bastard you wanted every customer to spend an extra $10 to have you install it.
    • Installing cards can be tricky. Here's what my girlfriend did when trying to install a PCI-card (creds to her for trying, though):

      On this particular computer there were more openings in the back of the case than there were PCI-slots on the motherboard. She fastened the card to the case without putting it in a PCI-slot. Then she wondered why it didn't work. I had a hard time not to laugh when I discovered what she had done. I think I did ok, though, since she is still willing to do her own upgrades. :-)

    • Re:Way back in the day... (Score:5, Funny)

      by WegianWarrior ( 649800 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @04:16AM (#7268510) Journal

      Reminds me of the large poster we have hanging in the workshop (I work with pneumatic, hydraulic and mechanical components for military jets, as well as other related items (ECS, EPU and so on)):

      If it jams - force it! If it breaks, it needed repair anyway!


      Seriously thought, there is a reason why the users manuals for comsuber electronics has page up and down with warnings how not to use the product - my new 30" widescreen television (a big thing weighting so much you need two ordinary people or four geeks to lift it) shall not - according to the manual - be used in the shower or bathtub... Obvioulsy some people lack any trace of common sence, and need to be told every little thing.

      • shall not - according to the manual - be used in the shower or bathtub...

        That's my Stupid Sign Theory(tm). The reason that really stupid sign/instruction manual is there is because some stupid bastard actually tried it already.

        "Do not return used condom to manufacturer"

        That's *my* personal favourite!

        • So true...
          One of my aunts has a job working for Toro writing manuals... Has to include things like, "Don't use lawn mower as hedge trimmer." Because somesone did and hurt themselves and sued them.

      • Seriously thought, there is a reason why the users manuals for comsuber electronics has page up and down with warnings how not to use the product - my new 30" widescreen television (a big thing weighting so much you need two ordinary people or four geeks to lift it) shall not - according to the manual - be used in the shower or bathtub... Obvioulsy some people lack any trace of common sence, and need to be told every little thing.

        Behind every stupid statement like that in an owner's manual is a story.

      • Re:Way back in the day... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by AllUsernamesAreGone ( 688381 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @08:01AM (#7269472)
        "Obvioulsy some people lack any trace of common sence, and need to be told every little thing."

        Which assumes, of course, that they actually read them. My experience is that people will only look at documentation (printed or otherwise) when all other options - including helpdesks, support lines, friends, prayer and personal application to God or Godess of choice - have been exhausted. And then the read it incorrectly or misunderstand it and break it anyway.

        My opinion is that companies that provide user obsequious documentation is preventing the correct course of evolution...
    • For those who remember Acorn computers, their A5000 4 to 8 Mb upgrade has to rate as the most kludgy memory upgrade ever sanctioned by the manufacturer. I took my machine to a component-level dealer (a portacabin on four sets of bricks in a suburban back garden), and there were 3 people fitting these things. They took out the motherboard, put on the 4 layers of socket, wood, plastic, more socket, lined it all up carefully (the components on the motherboard apparently drifted by several mm), and then belted

    • Re:Way back in the day... (Score:5, Funny)

      by B747SP ( 179471 ) <slashdot@selfabusedelephant.com> on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @05:07AM (#7268641)
      We didn't accept the return. I explained that my supplier would laugh me out of business if I tried to return it with chisel marks.

      I came in at the funny end of a hard disk DSAA (Dead Shortly After Arrival) story a few years back. Cuntstomer bought a new HDD from the computer story where SWMBO worked. Took it home, set stuff up. HDD went unserviceable within a day or so. Just plain bad luck in that respect..

      Unfortunately, aforementioned cuntstomer had a Friend Who Knows About Computers(tm) handy. Somehow or other, the FWKAC managed to convince him that he could recover the data by opening the disk.

      Trouble was, the disk didn't have common-or-garden phillips head screws, it used some new-fangle torx thingamy. No problem, FWKAC simply took to it with a battery powered drill, and drilled out the torx screws to get the case open.

      A bit like a dog chasing a car I suspect - no idea what he was going to do with it when he got it open.

      Anyway, the after all this, the cuntstomer brought the disk back expecting warranty replacement.

      Owner of the shop was an astute, but somewhat unorthodox HK Chinese cum New Zealander cum Australian (and last time anyone checked, living in China). He took one look at it all, and laughed. Right in the cuntstomer's face.

      And laughed. And laughed, and laughed. Funniest effing thing that any of us had ever seen. History doesn't record the cuntstomer's reaction, but it does state that he didn't get his warranty replacement.

      7+ years later, we're all still laughing.

      • Customers suck but so does tech support in Poland.

        I cringe when I hear "tech support" or "computer repair center".

        The places my friends go are full of idiots who are "studying IT". Seems that "studying IT" means playing Counterstrike and pirating CDs.

        A friend of mine had a 'problem' with his computer. He described it to me (first the computer would hang on startup and then would stop starting at all) and I told him to bring it round and I'd take a look at it.

        He said no, he'd have a professional look at
  • 'If card does not fit into expansion slot, cut card to fit, using hacksaw, belt sander or bread knife.'

    Which may sound far-fetched, but there are tales aplenty of this kind of incompetence at the excellent TechTales [techtales.com].

  • Don't ever try this: I mounted a hard drive cage for measuring without securing it with a screw... then I proceeded to do measurements from the front of the case. I pressed at the floppy drive without thinking, *WHOMP*, my precious drives took an instant trip to the bottom of the case. Fortunately there was no data loss, but don't try it ;)
  • From the aforementioned website, with around 40 comments posted thus far:

    "There are 17 registered and 5413 anonymous users currently online. Current bandwidth usage: 1406.08 kbit/s"

    Wow... betcha they notice that real quick!

  • Mounting the heatsink (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ctrl-alt-elite ( 679492 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @03:14AM (#7268335)
    The scariest part of upgrading I've found is the daunting process of mounting the heatsink on the processor. Most newer heatsinks have a little latch that helps with ease of installation, but there're always those renegade heatsinks without latches that just give me the jibblies to install.

    It wouldn't be so much of a problem if the heatsinks didn't require so much force to fit over the nubs on the processor housing that you have to press on them with a screwdriver, risking the integrity of the printed circuitry around the processor and your sanity as you press down on them in hope that they'll fit. But no... they still make you press like there's no tomorrow.
    • Same thing happened to me recently. I put together a webserver for a friend and based it on an Athlon XP2100 with a crappy ECS motherboard.

      Had it working fine at home under light load but it was acting funny during software installation. Thought it was the crap CDRom drive I threw in it and ignored it. Big mistake.

      Later I took it to his office, hooked it to the t1 and got it all setup. It was working ok..until the freezups, random reboots and crashing started THE NEXT DAY.

      He finally dropped it off
    • This is definitely the scariest thing to do during an upgrade. I find, however, that the problem is solved using the excellent ThermalRight SLK-900U (or something like it) which mounts using the mounting holes around the processor socket, so no nasty spring-loaded clips and no risk of putting a screwdriver through the motherboard.

      The amount of tightening of the screws you can get away with is quite frightening, but it does give good contact with the CPU core!
  • Step 8a...

    After your webserver is configured, create a page that has technical information that geeks are interested in, and have a friend submit a story to slashdot about it.

    Step 8b...

    Sit back, and watch the blinking lights turn solid with activity, as your 14 registered users get dogpiled with 6099 anonymous slashdotters. Admire the wonderful smell of melting IC chips while looking for your warranty paperwork.

    krystal_blade
  • For some stupid reason, the pink stripes on HDD and floppy ribbon cables are on different sides (HDD to the right, floppy to the left looking at the back of the drives. Not all cables and drives have keyed connectors and you *can* plug them in upside down! Roll on S-ATA.

    • It didn't hurt anything, though, it just didn't work. Power off, change cable around, turn on, all good.

      Not recommended, though! :)

      • I once went back and forth with a floppy cable until I noticed that one of the pins on the drive itself was bet.

        Fortunately nothing was damaged, and I was able to get it working again after tooling around with a vice grips. Not that a floppy drive would have been a great loss anyway.
    • I blew a fujitsu drive of my sister's that way. Had to replace her 2 Gig drive with a 20 Gig drive.

      The new drive had a keyed cable with it. I used it.

    • For some stupid reason, the pink stripes on HDD and floppy ribbon cables are on different sides

      No, you weren't paying attention. Pin #1 is always on the same side on both drive types; the side closest to the drive's power connector, that is.
  • and I can't RTFM I'm going to make wild speculation and say something that may/may not be true. When installing hardware always make sure that you are wearing a nice wooly jumper to make sure that you protect yourself from all the static that will build up. Also if you are trying to install a memory DIMM and it doesn't quite work, just press it hard so the mother board creaks

    Rus
    • it's probably the broken cpu's and overused arctic silver among with few fried mobos.

      it's such an old joke already. if you really want to find whats there i bet you could google something similar in 1 minute.

  • Upgrading is easy... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Realistic_Dragon ( 655151 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @03:28AM (#7268382) Homepage
    Just make sure you have done a full (or preferably 2) full backups first - then it doesnt matter what you do to your PC, nothing will go wrong. Hell, juggle the ram chips, play football with the hard disk, drop bits onto passing pedestrians... whatever the hell you feel like. It'll all work just fine.

    This state of affairs can obviously be implied from the case where you attempt to upgrade without backing up and it takes 0.0000001 seconds for something fatal to happen to your hard disk.
  • Considering their poor server is at this very moment in the process of becoming a molten lump of metal and slag, they should probably give some thought to renaming the article "Hardware Analysis: How NOT to configure a webserver"
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • If it don't fit... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ocelotbob ( 173602 )
    Don't force it. I've fried a grand total of one item, an old Maxtor 120MB drive. Was plugging it into a new comp to pull some files off it, put the power connector in upside down, noticed it didn't fit, forced it on, turned the system on, watched a pretty blue spark shoot from one of the chips, and begin smoking. Doing a postmortem on the drive, I noticed that one of the chips had bubbled from my stupidity.

    Fortunately, I had nothing that was irreplacable on the drive -- I was just plugging it in because it

  • ...I wish I were joking when I say that a lot of the stuff in that article frightens me more than it amuses me. Some of this stuff I've done, and apparently I shouldn't have. I basically taught myself how to put a system together through trial and error (and error, and error, and ERROR).

  • Dan's Data Did it first. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Gwala ( 309968 ) <adam AT gwala DOT net> on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @04:28AM (#7268538) Homepage
    Dan's Data: Step by Step 3: How to destroy your computer [dansdata.com]

    It's a much funnier article - and still relevant, despite the fact that it's been there for ~5 years now. :)

  • retailers: quit whining, get better products (Score:3, Insightful)

    by penguin7of9 ( 697383 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @05:04AM (#7268632)
    that these enthusiasts are a retailer's nightmare; the constant flow of hardware back and forth puts a considerable amount of stress on the retailer and his service personnel.

    The rate at which "enthusiasts" return stuff can't possibly compete with the rate at which regular, frustrated users return stuff for perfectly valid reasons. I suspect more than half of all new computer products don't work as advertised, have serious defects, are incompatible with systems they claim to be copatible with, or don't work at all. That's part of the business, but if companies put out so much defective stuff, the least they can do is take back the stuff that really doesn't work right without complaining. A lot of companies just seem to be outsourcing user testing to paying end users.

  • Oh no they removed the usercounter! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Please register or login. There are many registered and even more anonymous users currently online. Current bandwidth usage: 1498.88 kbit/s October 21 06:13 EDT


    They obviously caught me and my fellow slashdotters for refreshing that darn page just so see sume numbers grow :)
  • They got their sockets wrong - socket 5 was for early-model pentiums, not 486's. They must be pretty young if they don't remember socket 3's for 486's. Hell, I had a Intel InBoard 386 that you put in your XT (!!) PC and hooked up to your 8086 socket, with a bunch of ribbon cable.... man, did that sucker fly! :-)

    I recall a friend of mine getting a new 486 dx4-100 for his compaq and installing it 90 degrees off.

    He spent an hour going "Hmmm. Why won't this boot? The fan powers up, the LED on the CPU card bli
  • I refer you to this [kuro5hin.org].
  • A few gems from the German D.A.U. Alarm [dau-alarm.de] site:
  • I once, when I took my first steps on building PCs (I worked with amigas before that) tried to install my brand new SB AWE32 soundcard in my then brand new Compaq P90 tower.

    It went something like this:
    "Ok, cover open, free slot.. check."
    *grabs card*
    "Ok, now insert card in slot .... check."
    "Ok! now lets boot and install drivers."
    *looks at PC and discovers it was already on... uhoh :)*

    The card worked fine though. :)

  • I'm sure most of us have worked in technical support. I can personally vouch that I've seen machines brought in by customers who have done numbers 4, 5 (naturally), and definitely 6 (I think the customer let their child play with the motherboard?) and of course, it was never pretty.

    So, just incase there are some of you who don't think random computer hardware destruction is funny, consider the fact that this is definitely a satire piece, aimed at the uberclueless... (and those people are touching the ins

  • Is the intro to the artical. Where they talk about users in comp stores on a daily?! basis. Ouch, what is up with that.

    Then returning hardware a day or a week later when it's in perfect condition. I know retailers have to be good to their customers in order to keep them but wow. I never consdiered returning anything I got unless it was broken. Which back in some of the early days happened often enough as it was.

    Come on geeks, that's just not right!
  • If while building your custom box, your brand new AGP card won't go through the slot at the back of the PC, don't go buy a metal saw to make the hole bigger... Thrust me, you'll feel really stupid once you understand you have to insert the card by opening the side of the box.

  • ssassen writes...Very funny, and guaranteed to put a smile on your face!"

    Anyone else notice that the guy who made the original post was also the author ? And how he referred to "they" (as in the article author) instead of writing "I" to make it look like it was a third-party review ? Shameless plug, indeed.

    Ssassen, I am making a claim on your guarantee. I actually found the article to be extremely smug and condescending. There are people out there who don't know how to install computer hardware. What
  • When performing open heart surgery on a switched-mode PSU to replace a blown reservoir cap, remember to switch it off and discharge it before picking it up and laying the PCB flat on your hand.
  • First off, the utter stupidity of that article shows just how simple it has become over the past 15 years to actually mod your PC. Most of his instructions involve 'brute force,' which is always wrong (excepting the Athlon CPU fan circa 1 GHz).

    The second thing: First, a quote from the article, then a quote from the website:

    "he comes across a little 'hardware' website with just 12 people on the statcounter and a mere 6 more registered in the forums"

    "Please register or login. There are 20 registered and

    11

  • I sent it to our tech staff. But something tells me they are already familiar with everything in the article ;-)

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